Name of breed

[Mirkawolf]

Hey Ann,

I must disagree with the idea of changing name of our breed, just because of few morons who decided our breed
is threatening wolf population! It seems to me as insane, as when there was petition in USA for changing name of the second movie of Lord of the Rings (Two Towers), just because some of the Americans could connect it in mind with the attack to the Twins in New York! The book was written decades ago, and has nothing in common with what happened in USA last September.
Our breed was made also few decades ago, and it is called wolfdog, because it IS partly wolf! Let=B4s stop to play with words, our wolfdogs have about 20-30% of wolf blood, and that=B4s a fact. How comes, we don=B4t hear about the same kind of problems at Saarloos wolfhound? They are even more wolfy than our wolfdogs! And what about Irish wolfhounds? Should they also change name of breed, just because of the name, although they have nothing in common with wolves besides that the breed was made to hunt them? Yet, even these dogs are closely related to wolf, because wolf is a direct ancestor of every dog on this planet.
The problem is somewhere else. The problem i say, is, that somebody in Italy (a person or institution) doesn=B4t like the idea of our wolfdogs to live and do well in the country. And because there is no real reason to stop breeding them and keeping them (what a pity, they are not aggressive, so they can=B4t be forbidden like for example pitbulls in some countries), somebody came up with the idea of possible crossing of our animals with wolves.
I said it here once already, that every normal sized dog is able to mate with a wolf, if the wolf doesn=B4t mind. And it=B4s very improbable, that a wolf pack would accept a dog to join it and even mate with some of their females. Please, take some time (all of you here) and inform yourself little bit about wolf behaviour and rules of the wolf pack. Then you will see, how insane is this discussion.

Mirka Simunkova
Plzen, Czech Republic

(working at Zoological Garden Plzen, who owns 2 packs of european wolves)

[Natalya]

Hi, everybody.

Did you
know that the Russian Wolfhound's name was changed to Borzoi because people
thought that it was part wolf?!?? Names are very powerful.

I want to say, this information is false. Russkaya psovaya borzaya is
a Russian national breed, the symbol and honor of Russian dog breeding.
This breed has never had the name "Russian Wolfhound". According to
documents, in 1519 Dutch king sent French king dogs - "Borzoi of
Russian breed".

I don't know, what information Americans have about Borzoi. But I'm
Russian and I know the history and the name of my national breed. As well,
as Czech people know the name of their national breed, which doesn't
consist the word "wolf". The problem is only in translation into
different languages.

[Mirkawolf]

Anne,

if people are making no distinction between wolf-hybrids and FCI recognised dog breed, which had a wolf ancestor,
then it=A8s stupidity of people and not fault of the breed. As long as the kids will be scared by the fairy tale of Little
Red Riding Hood and TV will fill peoples mind with crapy movies about Werewolves, that long there will be fear from
wolf alive. And changing a name of breed won=B4t change anything.

Btw. Saarloos is far from being a DOG, it=B4s more wolf than our wolfdogs and it has almost none practical use. Huskies
and malamutes belong also to "primitive" breeds, just because of their "happy" face the public do not realise ...

This all is not problem of the breed, hybrids or wolves. This is all about silly people making troubles at bad place and moment.

Mirka

[catar2catars]

as Czech people know the name of their national breed, which doesn't
consist the word "wolf". The problem is only in translation into
different languages.

What is they Czech word for "wolf"?

Gr.
Roger.

[Natalya]

What is they Czech word for "wolf"?

in Czech - vlk
in Russian - volk

[zora]

Dear Roger, in czech language you can say "wolf" - VLK. And the
Czechoslovakian wolfdog is CESKOSLOVENSKY VLCAK. The word " VLCAK" many
people in our country use for breed German shepheard. It is difficult in our
country.
I hope, that I helped you with your problem.

Lucie.

[Jeffrey]

Everybody, everybody, everybody.........

Look at the bigger picture here, the discussion lays not within the name of
the breed or the appearance.

Its how the WE, the owners, communicate about our dogs (Somehow our dog
breed name has became the topic of a politic discussion) this is the issue!
Read we as a community are responsable for the image of our dogs. Espacialy
in Italy (at the moment), every escalation, fight or whatsoever will be
missused against the image of our dogs.

So what can we actually do, the only thing is try to promote the image of
our dogs in a positive way. We wont win this discussion within our community
(actually I'm getting fed up with all those mails, missing on the actual
issue). Who is actually doing something outside our community in relation to
the image of our breed.

I think we all know what the problem is, and I think we can define a simple
international plan, which supports everybody, in the local discussion. For
starters,
(this is just a proposal, I'd like to start a discussion in how we can win
this battle). We could write a theses on our breed, the actual
characteristics and for instance figures of actual statistics, we could
present those to the local authorities, the local veterinarian on so
on........

We could promote our breed more via dogshows and so on and so forth,

I hope I've started a constructive discussion from which we derive a plan on
how to promote our breed,

sincerely yours,

Big Howl,

Jeffrey

[Mirkawolf]

Hello Jeffrey,

i agree, that's a good idea. In one of my previous e-mails, i wrote what all i do for promoting the breed here.
Now, it would be great, if other owners of wolfdogs do the same in their countries.

Why don't you all tell us now in this discussion, what YOU do for helping to show the breed how it really is,
not how the public wants to see it?

I agree with Jeffrey, that whining about the problem doesn=B4t solve anything.

Waiting for some "positive" e-mails.

Mirka

[Mirkawolf]

to everybody:

I forgot to mention, that i personally made two big boards about the wolves, which are displayed here at the ZOO at the European wolf enclosure. They inform not only about wolves, their character, appearance and acting, but there is also big board about wolf history, their ancestors and breeds developed from them .. and guess what, of course there is a picture of Ceskoslovensky vlcak!

If you want, i can go out and take picture of them with my camera and put it online. But i am sorry, it's only in czech.

Mirka

[weirdcyberjunkie]

Hello,

Go outside and do it.
Maybe we can use it.

tnx

[Mirkawolf]

Ok, no problem. I will do it today afternoon, and tonight i will put it online somewhere and i will
send to the conference link about where it can be seen. Ok?

Mirka

[Jeffrey]

Hanna Leena,

You haven't understood the previous mail, its not a name discussion its an
image discussion. I'll explain, you don't know me bud, people told you I'm a
thieve. Know a couple of months later were trying to Work together, and I
need space for staying over, what would be your answer??

Another one, because you'll experience this subjectiveness in your own peer
relations too;

For instance, you're having a discussion with your husband about buying a
expensive watch, he says we haven't got the money. Frustrated you leave the
discussion for what it is. Two months later you're having another discussion
(related to a money issue again) everything your husband says will be
translated by you through a subjective mindset, after all referring to the
last discussion (taken that you didn't told him your frustrations) you're
still frustrated and will think that he's selfish in everything he says,
even if its positive.,

By the way, this goes for dogs too, however on a total different level, the
dog will associate a couple of external triggers, Its morning, and you still
look sleepy and you smell from your mouth, the dog wont beg, after you've
brushed your teeth and you look awake, he will ask you for going out or some
food, Funny isn't it that an issue of external problem relate to the way the
dog looks at us too. So this problem we have with those politicians, could
well be a problem we, unconsciously, experience with our dogs.

Kinds,

Jeffrey

[Villulv]

So, the word "Vlak" has nothing to do with wolves?

Sanna

[Villulv]

"I'm not saying to change the name but it is a fact that the GSD also has wolfblood and that his former name was Alsatian wolfdog and that they
changed the name because of the public opinion about wolves during that time"

Can you please tell me about this name change and when it happened?
Sanna

[catar2catars]

Sanna,
on http://www.grapevine.net/~wolf2dog/index.html
you can find an article about that including kopies of the original GSD
studbook which shows wolf crosses and a kopie of a Belgian magazine which
refers to the name The Alsatian Wolfdog.

[Mirkawolf]

Sanna,

the word "vlak" means "train".

Mirka

[z Peronówki]

Ok, I didn't know that the real name is Ceskoslovensky vlcak and that
other people/countries are changing it! I wonder how that happened.
Ann

The answer is simple: the czechoslovakian club registered the breed at the
FCI under the name "Czechoslovakian wolfdog". And that's the official name.
In the breed standard you can also find the words "Ceskoslovensky vlcak" but
it appears just as notice what is the breed name in the country of
origin.....

So the title of the breed standard looks the following way:

CZECHOSLOVAKIAN WOLFDOG No. 332
(Ceskoslovensky vlcak)

Greetings,
Margo

[Villulv]

And "vlcak" means?

Sanna

[z Peronówki]

And "vlcak" means?
Sanna

I can only say what "wilczak" it means in Polish ))
It is DOG looking similar to a wolf (but it's still a dog and not a
wolfdog).

Greetings,
Margo

[z Peronówki]

As you can notice, there is nothing about wolf in the original name. But
because other countries are lazy or unable to use the original name of
the breed, they use their own names - wilczur, wolfdog, cane lupo and
whatever.

The other countries are not lazy. Translating the breed name into its own
language is normal. If you visit the web page of Czech Kennel Club
http://www.cmku.cz/ you will see also Czech people translated almost all
breed names into Czech.

Keeping the original name is also not so good idea. The official name for
CzW in Poland is (so far) Ceskoslovensky vlcak but during two first years
when we started to show Bolton there was nobody who spoked the name
right.... We heard different versions "Czeski wilczur", "Czeskoslowenski
vlak",
"Slowacki wilczek", a.s.o. Now we decided to change it. Every CzW owner is
using the new version "Czechoslowacki wilczak" and i hope it will be the
official name soon.

The only problem for every nation is to use the best translation for the
word "vlcak". If you translate this word into polish it will be "wilczur".
But also here people use this word when they are talking about german
shepherds or their crosses. So it is stupid to use this word because every
feature of a GSD is a big fault for a czechoslovakian wolfdog.... It is the
reason why we decided to use "wilczak" - it is polish word for a
wolf-looking dog.

So the easiest way is maybe to call the breed the real original
name - vlcak, and no one has troubles.
Mirka

I'm not so sure... It is almost impossible to pronounce it right if you
don't
know the Czech language.

Greetings,
Margo